


the things they say

by tangentiallly



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: F/F, Pre-Canon, josephine-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 00:41:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28929693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tangentiallly/pseuds/tangentiallly
Summary: people say lots of things about georgina, most of them not flattering. josephine doesn't really let that affect her own opinions.
Relationships: Josephine Anwhistle/Georgina Orwell
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	the things they say

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: i don't own asoue

people tell her that georgina is cold and aloof and menacing, they tell her she’s never been very loyal to vfd even if she has never technically switched sides, they tell her that georgina only cares about her own profit, only cares about making money, never respected literature the way volunteers are supposed to. that she hypnotizes people.

people tell her a lot of things about georgina orwell, sometimes in disapproval, sometimes in disdain, sometimes in an intimidated manner.

josephine supposes she could see where those comments are from, but she has a different way of viewing the enigma that is georgina orwell. people say georgina is cold and aloof and only smiles when she needs something from you, quoting that line about honey and vinegar. but that line isn’t even wrong, is it, that honey do catch flies easier than vinegar. josephine isn’t particularly a person full of smiles, either, she herself is constantly worrying too much, being too careful, under too much stress to smile all the time. she does not know how to smile so warmly and enthusiastically like beatrice all the time, and instead frowns rather a lot, or adopting a rather neutral expression to conceal her fears.

so georgina only smiles when she needs something, when she wants to get something, so what? josephine can respect that georgina doesn’t want to smile when she doesn’t need to, it’s hardly an obligation, is it, and it feels rather like some society’s expectation of women, and that’s hardly fair. the denouements rarely smile, either, usually neutral and expressionless, and most people call them mysterious instead of cold, so why is it different when it’s georgina doing it?

josephine doesn’t mind that georgina doesn’t smile often. not all of us can be beatrice, she thinks. plus, josephine has seen georgina occasionally cracking a sarcastic, witty remark. not too often, just occasionally, here and there, but they were always on point, always precise, and josephine admires that.

as for not being very loyal to vfd, hardly anyone’s too loyal these days in the times of schisms, many people do things with ulterior motives, and with conflicting rumors flying around all the time, can anyone really deeply trust anyone else? georgina does not consider herself a firestarter, and has never started a fire, and that’s good enough for josephine. olivia’s loyalties are questionable too, but people says well at least she’s nice, she’s helpful, and it all comes back to the first point again, georgina isn’t nice, she’s too intimidating, too sharp, too harsh, doesn’t smile enough, and josephine remembers being told that, too, that she’s too tense all the time, that she doesn’t smile enough, that she should be more cheerful, should relax more, and she thinks of all the expectations imposed on her and feels a sudden solidarity with georgina, even if they never really ever talk about this.

as for vfd and literature and books, well, personally jospehine thinks georgina choosing to use “georgina orwell” as an alias is some kind of statement directed at vfd, about vfd controlling the information the volunteers receive, and it’s a rather clever statement, isn’t it? josephine can appreciate that. she likes it when people play with literary devices in different ways.

as for hypnotizing, granted that makes josephine feels uncomfortable, morally, but so does many things the volunteers do. all these things make her insides tied up like a knot but she grits her teeth silently and do them anyway because she’s too cautious to not to do so. but she feels uncomfortable about gregor’s dangerous research, too, about the recruitment techniques, too, about the poison darts, too, so what’s hypnotizing? just another thing, at the end of the day.

people tell josephine a lot of things about georgina orwell, and josephine gets where those are coming from, she understands their concerns, but she can’t really say those made her dislike georgina orwell. in fact, it made her kind of respect her, like her, feel drawn to her, even.

beatrice claims georgina is mean and cold and distant, and josephine thinks that not everyone can be like beatrice herself, the light of everyone’s life; bertrand disapproves of the hypnotizing, but josephine thinks that georgina is not the one with blood on her hand; jacques questions georgina’s loyalty, but josephine thinks jacques has rather high standards for loyalty; lemony despises georgina’s writing, which -

was a fascinating thing, actually, because lemony definitely has his own style of writing that some people highly dislike, too, so josephine is curious to know which type of writers dislike which type of styles, it’s a fascinating subject to delve into, she really ought to properly look into it sometime.

people say all sorts of things about georgina, and at the end of the day, they don’t really matter to josephine.

**Author's Note:**

> [come say hi on tumblr](https://beatricebidelaire.tumblr.com)


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